So, It's Been A Year, but Yesterday was Pretty Big!

I've let this blog go to seed since all of my single payer health care demonstration organizing last year. I haven't given up that ghost, but I have moved most of my political conversation with the masses to Twitter.


But back to yesterday, October 15, 2011: Never before have so many countries & cities protested together for the same cause - and it wasn't even covered live on the news. MSNBC and Current TV had their usual weekend lineup of prison reality shows, and CNN barely skimmed the huge demonstrations all over the globe. 952+ cities in 82 countries. Seriously. When was it the Tea Party Movement went global? Oh, right. Never.

I've pilfered some images to use in my blog, which are flying around Facebook and Twitter with no way of tracking the originators, so I'm going to assume it's all for the cause and they won't mind. If you see something of yours and want credit or want it removed, let me know.

Luckily, we do now have Twitter, so we have live accounts, photos, sites with live streaming video of over 100 major demonstrations occurring simultaneously in the global protest. It was AMAZING.

In Israel, 500K Jews, Arabs, students, foreign workers & refugees protesting side by side chanting, "The people demand social justice." How awesome is that??

Here's a link to a great article at BusinessInsider.com, explaining with color pie charts and graphs enough to make *Officer Obie proud, just what the all these protesters are so ticked off about anyway. (*Sorry. Alice's Restaurant reference for the old folks.)

Remember when a family had one wage earner and they still could afford their own home? Ha!

You can rifle through that pretty quickly to get the general idea, or refresh your tired addled mind what you're doing all this for.


In the meantime, my new strategy is to ask EVERYONE to put something along the lines of this on their car, their shirt, their window, their dog, their marquee, in their yard, on their private  jet (not all rich people are pricks):

Click on the bumper sticker if you'd rather order this one than make your own.

This is the biggest issue. Until we do this, we can't do much of anything else, and we're all at the mercy of Walmart, CitiBank and the Koch brothers.

Charles and David Koch

So put your bumper sticker where your integrity is, then go to www.getmoneyout.com and sign the petition, 200,000 strong and growing, demanding a Constitutional Amendment to get money out of politics, once and for all. 

Thanks!

Kristin

Mad As Hell Doctors California Road Trip and Sacramento Single Payer Rally

Mad As Hell Oregon E.R. Dr. Paul Hochfeld & me in Pasadena

Hello again. I hope you're all keeping your cool in this wicked hot weather... Many of you came out to our Hollywood & Highland Health Care Reform rallies this time last year. While we did accomplish some health care goals, we have a long way to go.

I hope to see you again soon, as Oregon's Mad As Hell Doctors are winding their way through California, drumming up support and motivating Californians to build a strong grassroots movement to finally accomplish Single Payer health care for California - and the nation.

Dozens of local organizers and groups are joining the Doctors' California Road Trip along the route, planning rallies and media opportunities to build Single Payer energy and help the California legislature and new Governor recognize that Single Payer health care is the compassionate and fiscally responsible choice.

Tonight they're in Santa Cruz, tomorrow 9/28 in Stanford, 9/29 in San Luis Obispo, 9/30 Santa Barbara, 10/1 Monterey Park and Burbank, 10/2 Pasadena's Levitt Pavilion, 10/3 Venice, CA... and on and on until the biggest and most important rally on the State Capitol steps in Sacramento on October 12 from 10am to noon.

Mayor of Santa Cruz - Tonight

MEDICARE FOR ALL: EVERYBODY IN - NOBODY OUT

It is very important to have a large turnout for Single Payer in Sacramento on October 12th and we're asking that you consider traveling there to add your presence and your voice to this demonstration of California's support for universal health care. 

Sacramento Capitol steps on October 12th  10am-Noon

For detailed information, click on the name of your city in the itinerary that follows the map, at this link. If you can help, please contact the local organizers listed for each city.  

Their main site is at www.madashelldoctors.com and they're on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/MadDrs.

Be safe out there.

Kristin Dewey
www.mikessister.com

Medicare's 45th Birthday & L.A. Single Payer Rally Tomorrow!

Tomorrow, Sunday August 1, 2010, we will celebrate the 45th birthday of Medicare and demonstrate our support for Bay Area Senator Mark Leno's SB 810, The California Universal Health Care Act! It is also my brother Mike's birthday, so it's a perfect day for me to show my continued support for a Single Payer Health Plan.

Sunday, August 1, 2010 2–4 p.m.
Guest Speakers:
Sara Rogers, Legislative health care consultant to Senator Mark Leno, author of SB 810
Sandy Goldfarb from the California Alliance for Retired Americans.
—
Mercado La Paloma
3655 South Grand Ave.
Los Angeles

• At 37th Street; exit on Exposition Blvd. off 110; blocks from USC and downtown
• Web: mercadolapaloma.com
• Bus: Broadway / 36th 40, 42, 45
• Plenty of free parking!

SB810 Fact Sheet: http://bit.ly/9GkE37

For more information call 323–316-8933 or email lisa@singlepayernow.net.
Details at SinglePayerNow.net     http://bit.ly/aGLQ1I 

I look forward to seeing some friendly faces from last year's Hollywood & Highland rallies. : )
To our good health!

Kristin Dewey

With love in our hearts!

Not perfect - far from it, but closer than we've ever been to universal health care in the United States of America. Thank you everyone who worked so hard to make this happen.

Celebrate! Relish this moment. Remember this day - because tomorrow is another day and another battle. Change, as we've learned, is not easy. It will not come quickly, and it won't be pretty, but it will come. The times are changing - finally - and we should all give ourselves a big hug right now. We deserve it.

Most of us haven't worked all these months or years for health care reform for ourselves. Most of us have good jobs with good benefits. We've been doing it for the rest of America - to those who aren't as fortunate as we are... For the poor, the abused, the sick, the neglected, the overworked, the underpaid, and everyone who just wants the world to be a little bit more fair in a country where we can afford to take care of our own. And we've been doing it for the ignorant right wing tea party Americans who just can't see the forest for the trees.

Don't hate them. Don't respond to their anger in kind. Love them. They can't help it. They've been duped by the machine into fighting for the very interests intent upon using them up and spitting them out. They can't understand that what we want is what they need and that in most cases we're doing it for them more than for ourselves.

They're like a mad dog with a nail in their paw. They're terrified. They're in pain. They think we're out to get them. They don't know we're trying to help and if they'll just let us, we can help get that paw fixed, that operation covered, that preexisting arthritic condition will no longer be an issue... but they don't know, and they can't think straight.

Eventually, they'll come around. They'll begin to get it, and we can be friends again.

Fight and keep fighting, but do it with love in your heart.

Peace,
Kristin

MoveOn Emergency Rally for Health Care Reform Tues 1/26/10

MoveOn Emergency Rally
for Healthcare Reform 

It's not dead yet!

Tues 1/26/10 12noon
Raymond Ave. and Holly St., Pasadena CA
More info about this and other rallies nationwide:
MoveOn.org

Bring signs and banners.

The Two Obamas

The Two Obamas

by Teri Szucs

 The progressives in our country are growing impatient as common sense solutions are pushed aside and labeled extremist; the pragmatists among us are concluding that patience is no longer a virtue, but just a waste of time.

As a naturalized citizen, I hold dual citizenships, and dual political points of view that see two presidents.

One is President Obama, Nobel Peace Prize winner, the man who, in weeks, obliterated the world's perception of the United States as an imperialist bully. The other is President Obama and his domestic trail of broken promises and wasted opportunities.

The immigrant in me sees the President as an improbable day dream of how the world should be. No more, "he is a bastard but he is our bastard." No more Iran contra, no more political assassinations in Chile, no more secret police in South America, and no more operation Paris keeping our hostages in Iran. No more torture, and I do not mean just, "I am shocked there is water boarding going on in Guantanamo," I mean just dunk their head in the toilet, Chile-style. No more El Salvador, no more United Fruit Company, no more Shah of Iran coups, and no more arming the Taliban to "protect the Afghan people from the evil empire."

In an instant, Barack Obama became the impossible dream and ended not eight years of imperialist policies, but 60.

Then there is the American in me - most of me, since I have lived here my entire adult life. This American citizen is completely disillusioned. President Obama has broken or fudged every single domestic policy promise made during his campaign, leaving most progressives to wish Dennis Kucinich had been a better candidate. This is just a short list: reverting the Bush tax cuts, protecting gay rights, investing in infrastructure, putting an end to mandatory sentencing, closing Guantanamo, fixing the education crisis, and of course, how he blundered and delegated health care reform.
I suspect that someday, history will remember his Cairo speech and the jaw dropping moment when he spoke about the US overturning the government of Iran as a pivotal moment in the relation and perception between the United States and the rest of the world. In a passing comment, the president of the United States said the emperor was naked.

President Obama's Afghanistan policy does not make him a hawk. He will not let the Taliban stone rape victims to death - the Taliban that Reagan helped bring to power in the first place. We should not need a self serving reason to stay; the consequences of leaving would be horribly inhumane. I think I can live with the president's decision to stay, and so can the Nobel Peace Prize committee.
Yes, he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, but don't we deserve the progressive government we thought we were electing?

During the first weeks of his presidency, as his left hand kept putting pen to paper, one executive order after another, I was expecting to be just as awe struck, but the ceremony failed in substance and impact again and again. I wanted to hear, loud and clear "elections have consquences." Instead, I got "bipartisanship," aka, one-partisanship. I wanted to hear, "as of right now, Medicare will comply with the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment and protect all citizens regardless of age." Instead, I heard, "I will delegate health care reform to Olympia Snowe." I am sure Senator Snowe did not vote for President Obama, just as I am sure we did not elect her president. Anything less than single payer is just one more entitlement the middle class cannot afford. Anything less than Medicare for all does nothing to mitigate the competitive handicap for American companies in the global market.
I wanted to hear the gates of Guantanamo slam shut. Instead, I got, "not in my backyard, fine, send them to The Hague."

I wanted to hear "our education will rise to international standards and implement an international baccalaureate equivalent nationwide."

I wanted to hear soldiers ask and tell.

I wanted to hear our pot smoking president rethink the ten years mandatory sentencing for marijuana.
I expected this day dream president to bail out Main Street, not Wall Street. I had the audacity to hope that when a bank too big to fail, fails, my president would nationalize it; excuse my language; he would buy it, giving the United States of America something every other country in the world has: a National Bank. This bank would keep credit flowing and avidly refinance "the toxic assets" most people call homes. Our National Bank would be the financial equivalent of the public option and would assure that no bank dare hike credit card rates up to usury levels to lend us our own money. Yes, I want the bank I paid for.

I expected infrastructure, the kind that builds a country and creates jobs: freeways, airports, public transit, all of which we desperately need. Instead, the stimulus package "saved" jobs by giving the states a one time reprieve - jobs that will not survive another fiscal year.

I want the president I voted for, the president candidate Obama would support.

I expected a new deal, the Second Bill of Rights. But while F.D.R. wanted to be judged by the enemies he made, President Obama wants to be judged on how many friends and compromises he makes.

Yes, the world should love him; they have all the right reasons to, and for those reasons, so should we. But after twenty five years of trickle down free market Reaganomics, the American people desperately needed a president for and of the people, fearless of change, fearless of rival opinions.

Those of us who put Barack Obama in the Oval Office have been pushed aside, our loyalty taken for granted. It would seem his leadership ended at the front doors of the White House.

Original Article on HuffingtonPost.com: http://bit.ly/6CG6Hh 
Follow Teri Szucs on Twitter: www.twitter.com/teriszucs

National Health Care Vigils Tues. 12/8

Healthcare For America Now and Moveon.org are organizing

National COST OF DELAY Health Care Vigils this Tuesday 12/8.

Find or or host one near you!

Los Angeles Vigils include Feinstein's office in West L.A.
and Pasadena City College, among others.

More info at: Moveon.org Cost of Delay Vigils